


Subdivisions

by subdivisions



Category: Game Grumps
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-04-04
Updated: 2016-08-07
Packaged: 2018-05-31 06:24:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 16,412
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6459397
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/subdivisions/pseuds/subdivisions
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Uniformity and conformity are what maintain order. Maybe that's why meeting Dan Avidan threw your life out of control.<br/>Somewhat futuristic AU.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

At 6:30, the gentle chirping of your alarm pulls you from slumber and you yawn, stretch, and lie there for a moment more before dragging yourself out of bed and setting your daily routine into motion.

Breakfast is already waiting for you downstairs, laid out on the table before your parents as always. “Good morning,” is passed around, from you to your mother to your father and back to you, and then you all eat to the low murmur of the morning newscast on the television.

_“Yesterday, protests in the capital turned violent when a Nonconformist assaulted a Department of Social Health officer…”_

You raise your eyes to the thin television mounted on the wall. A girl, tall and lean and all arms and legs, screams in the face of a motionless DSH officer. She flings the bottle in her hands wildly, motioning to the crowd of people behind her, tossing her bright pink hair out of her face. A pause, and then without warning she slams her bottle into the side of the officer’s helmeted head. The camera trembles as the crowd surges forward.

“Those Nonconformists, at it again,” your mother mutters.

“They ought to round ‘em all up and put them through recal therapy,” your father remarks absently.

Your eyes fall back to your food. Nonconformists, at it again. This, too, is normal - just another part of your daily routine.

After breakfast you shower, get dressed, brush your teeth. You place your tablet into your bag and double-check to ensure you have everything for the day ahead. Downstairs you go again, tossing a goodbye over your shoulder as you head out the front door. Your mother’s cheery, “Have a good day!” follows you, echoed by your father a second later.

Outside, low-hanging gray clouds kiss the rooftops, threatening rain. It is mild despite the dreary weather, and you reach down to unbutton your gray blazer, exposing the pristine white button-down shirt beneath. Like any other day, it will take you ten minutes to get to school, leaving you with plenty of time to socialise and get your things together for your first class. Your eyes fall to the gray sidewalk beneath your feet, rolling beneath rolled-down white socks atop dark gray brogues.

“Y/N!”

You lift your head at the sound of your name. A cluster of gray is waiting ahead of you - classmates. Friends. Above the gunmetal uniforms are content, blandly smiling faces, and you mirror their expressions. They surround you, and you melt into the small crowd as conversation bubbles up, tugging you in. The discussion is simple and basic. You discuss the homework, the weather, talk of new uniforms. 

One boy leans close and whispers conspiratorially. “Hey, listen to this. I saw my neighbour get dragged out of his house the other day by the DSH.” 

His voice falls even lower as everyone bends closer. “He’s going to be forced into _recalibration therapy._ He was secretly a Nonconformist, planning to overthrow the government!”

Dramatic gasps rustle through the group. You try to picture it: a man, maybe middle-aged, dressed in bright colours and loud patterns, kicking and screaming as he is dragged across his lawn by the Department of Social Health’s black-clad, helmeted officers towards the gaping doors of a dark paddywagon. The girl from the news flickers through your head, as well; she is in mid-swing, face contorted with anger and effort, shards of glass nicking her cheeks. Probably well into recal therapy by now. It’s for her own good. Nonconformists and their agenda are a threat to social health.

At school, algebra II, world history, Studies on the Human Body, literature, and Social Health all pass without incident. Before you know it, the last bell is ringing, and you’re leaving your last class of the day - physics - and waving to Dr Wecht as you go. And then, you are on your way home again, surrounded by all your friends. You will go home to your parents and study until dinner was ready, and then you’ll all eat to the newscast just like breakfast -

Someone shoves you aside and one of your friends releases a startled scream. You looked up as a boy holding a girl’s hand shoves through the group, jumping over a fence and running through someone’s yard. The girl’s hair is light pink, you notice, barely avoiding getting knocked to the ground by another girl in all black -

They’re Nonconformists, you realise, and someone slammed hard into your back.

Almost immediately large hands grab your shoulders, straightening you up. A face, framed in wild brown curls, appears before your own. Thin eyebrows drop low in concern over warm brown eyes. “Holy shit, I’m sorry.”

His crass word choice goes right over your head. There’s more of them, running past him, calling desperately for him to hurry up. He looks to his right and color drains from his skin as fear bleeds onto his features. He lets you go, and then he’s gone.

DSH officers are suddenly in your midst, pushing through you just as the Nonconformists had seconds before. One of them pauses, their visor scanning the lot of you, and everyone recoils from the blackness of their armoured uniform.

“Watch out for Nonconformists,” a rough, feminine voice orders from the void of the helmet. “Be careful going home.” 

And then she’s gone, too, following the path of her fellow officers and the Nonconformists before them.

Silence reigns after they’re gone. Tense, perturbed silence. Everyone scatters, darting into their respective homes, thrown completely off-track by this disruption in their daily routine.

But you are less perturbed and more throughtful. You let your feet carry you down the path that’s ingrained into your muscles and nerves. You go home, you say hello to your parents, and you go upstairs as you normally would. You open your physics book, but you don’t study it. The words on the page are drowned out by the thoughts in your head.

“Y/N! Dinnertime!”

You shuffle downstairs, join your parents at the table, and a moment passes before you blurt, “Some Nonconformists were getting chased by the DSH earlier today. They ran right through us on the way home from school.”

Your parents’ faces pop up from their meals, shocked. 

“Are you okay?” your father demands, and you nod, though it’s abundantly clear that you are. Both of them relax, but there’s a pressure in the air now. You glance between the two of them.

“What do you think of Nonconformists?” you ask slowly.

Your father’s response is immediate. “They’re ungrateful, entitled, naïve brats,” he spits.  Your mother nods sagely in agreement. “They don’t know how good they’ve got it. The government does so much for us. The world’s in much better shape - nothing like the Old World. They ought to just learn to accept things and move on. I wish the government could just track down every Nonconformist and recalibrate them.”

Your gaze drops to your food, untouched and growing cold. “I just - the people getting chased… They were around my age. And they looked really, really afraid of the DSH officers. And I just have to wonder what they did to have the DSH after them like that.” You shrug. “I just think it’s a little weird to think that if things are so perfect, why do people have to _learn_ to accept it and deal with it. I mean, there’s so many Nonconformists and obviously not everyone’s happy, so…”

The silence you are receiving lifts your gaze to stormy faces. You realise too late that you’ve said too much.

“That sounds an awful lot like Nonconformist talk, young lady,” your father says lowly. “And I won’t have Nonconformism in my house.”

“S-sorry,” you blurt, shoving your chair away from the table. “I was just - just wondering. I didn’t mean anything by it.”

You don’t bother to excuse yourself as you hurriedly leave the table and dart up the stairs.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is my first work posted here on AO3 and honestly, I haven't been writing for a while and so I hope this will be enjoyable.


	2. Chapter 2

_“Nonconformist communities demanded an audience with the Minister of Social Health, but were denied. The Minister was quoted as saying, ‘This Nonconformist obsession with Old World cultures is a threat to social health everywhere. It is time to leave such vestiges of the past behind and move on, accepting the future and the culture we have created for the sake of us all.’”_

You pause the newscast with a touch to your tablet’s screen and sit back against the headboard of your bed. It’s all things you’ve heard before, and you expect to draw some comfort from that. It should have been reassuring. Just like your parents said before, Nonconformists cling to Old World cultures and threaten social health. But for some reason, the newscast brings you no comfort, and neither had the ones you’d watched before it. Scenes of violently protesting Nonconformists being arrested by noble, black-clad DSH officers had only made you uneasy, and for the very first time.

And you can’t understand why.

You think of what your father had said, accusing you of thinking like a Nonconformist. Never before have you ever thought about Nonconformists deeper than what you’d seen on the news, but now the frightened faces of the kids from before flicker through your brain. You think of the girl who attacked the DSH officer and you wondered what she had been screaming at him. You think of the communities who had been denied an audience with the Minister of Social Health and you wonder why they would be so insistent on keeping their Old World cultures. Even more than that, you wonder why it is so hard for you to understand.

You push your tablet to the side and oress your lips into a thoughtful frown. You want to understand, because now you can’t get it out of your mind. You can’t ask your parents and the news isn’t telling you anything you haven’t already heard. You can’t search for understanding at school - you don’t want your friends thinking you were turning into a Nonconformist and you don’t want teachers getting concerned and calling your parents. So where can you go?

A thought fluttered through your mind. You can ask a Nonconformist.

You shake the thought away. You don’t even know any Nonconformists. Besides, what if the newscasts are right? What if all Nonconformists really were violent anarchists, and you get hurt trying to seek one out?

But then you think of the Nonconformists from before. You think of the one who had straightened you up, of his apology, of the genuine concern in his brown eyes.

Nonconformists can’t be _that_ bad.

 

-

 

The next day, your routine begins once again. Waking up. Getting ready. At breakfast, you were the same good, conformist child that you had always been - except this time, it feels like a mask.

Your walk to school is the same as always. Talking, laughing, sharing rumours and stories. But this time, when the subject of secret Nonconformists arises, you lift your head and pay close attention.

“I wonder if the DSH caught those Nonconformists from yesterday,” one of your friends, Mark, wonders aloud. He elbows you, grinning. “I bet they did. What do you think?”

You shrug, avoiding his gaze. “I wonder what they did.”

“Does it matter what they did?” Mark asks, one eyebrow flying up over his glasses. “They’re Nonconformists.”

“I don’t think the DSH caught them,” another friend, Matt, chimes in from behind you. “If they managed to get to the part of the city that isn’t gridded, it’d be super easy to lose them.”

“There’s a part of the city that isn’t gridded?” you ask, looking at Matt over your shoulder.

“Well, yeah,” Matt begins. “Near the mass-production zone, there’s a section of the city that’s all Old World-era buildings that haven’t been torn down or repurposed. I’ve heard that Nonconformists like to hang out there.”

“Makes sense,” Mark says. “They’re all stuck on Old World beliefs anyway - of course they’d hang out in a bunch of Old World buildings.”

A third friend, Ryan, doesn’t seem very interested. “Those buildings are all falling apart anyway. Eventually the city will demolish them and grid that section. I heard they’re gonna expand the mass-production zone.”

The topic shifts once more, but you’re no longer paying attention. Now, even if it is just a rumour, you know where to start looking.

Your mind is elsewhere throughout the school day. With one ear half-trained on the lectures, your notes are sloppy and disjointed. The day rushes by, but as you start to leave your last class of the day, a voice calls out and stops you.

You turn, blinking at Dr Wecht behind his desk. With a smile, you go over to him, a touch of impatience in your step.

“You seemed a little out of it during class today,” Dr Wecht says slowly, leaning back in his chair. “You’re normally so attentive and engaged. Is something bothering you, Y/N?”

Your gaze falls to his desk and you shuffle under the scrutiny of his intense blue-grey gaze. “No, not really. I just - I’m just a little out of it today. I didn’t sleep well last night.”

His eyes are digging into you, but he didn’t push the matter. “Well, try to take it easy.”

“I will. See you tomorrow, Dr Wecht.” 

You scuttle out of the room quickly and rush through your walk home, only half-aware of the conversation taking place around you. It’s when you get home that the nervousness really comes crashing down on you. Your parents can’t know that you’re going to be snooping around the edge of the mass-production zone. 

“Hey, Mom?” you call, stepping through the front door. You clutch your bag’s strap, wringing it anxiously, shuffling from side to side.

“I’m in the living room, Y/N,” your mother calls, and you move to stand in the living room’s doorway. She’s sitting on the sofa, her tab resting on her knee. She smiles up at you, and it’s full of trust. “Have a good day at school?”

“It was fine,” you say, forcing yourself to smile back. “Hey, I was wondering, um… My friend Matt needs help studying for a physics test we’re having soon, and he asked for my help. Is it all right if I go over to his place and help him study?”

Your mother blinks and not a twinge of suspicion flickers across her face. She trusts you. She believes you. What a good girl you are, helping out a friend.

“Of course you can. Just make sure you don’t stay out too late, and that you call us when you’re on your way home.”

“I will,” you blurt. “I’ll see you later, then.” 

You toss a wave over your shoulder and then you’re out the door. Your heart is pounding in your chest as you close your front door behind you. You’ve never lied to your parents - not like this. A little fib is one thing, but this - what you’re doing could be dangerous. But you ignore the dread and the guilt and you force yourself to go towards the towering shadows of the mass-production zone’s factories.

The bland freshness of your residential zone is soon taken over by the industrial fumes of the mass-production zone. You’re in unfamiliar territory now, but you just clutch your bag, scanning your surroundings as if you expect someone to ghost out of the shadowy, crumbling alleys and attack you. 

And then you see him.

The boy from before - the Nonconformist who had nearly knocked you down. Tall, lanky, a cloud of brown curls floating around his shoulders. He is meandering down the sidewalk, a white plastic bag dangling from his fingers. You start to rush forward, hesitate, then decide to follow from a distance.

As you walk, you try to decide how to approach him. What do you say? What if he tries to hurt you? You don’t notice that your quarry has quickly turned a corner and you’ve lost sight of him.

You turn the same corner and blink. He’s gone. Your shoulders fall and you look around, bewildered -

\- and then you shriek shrilly as your arm is grabbed and you are whipped around.

“Why are you following me?” the Nonconformist demands, but he doesn’t sound as angry as he does nervous. He doesn’t look as angry as he does anxious, either; his eyebrows are drawn close together, his face is pinched and in the waning sunlight you can see that he is pale. His hand is large and though he’s lanky, his grip is strong. You try to shake yourself loose, but he won’t let you go.

“I - I - “ you stammer, but he interrupts you.

“Are you with the DSH?” he asks, and a new wave of fear washes over his features. “Are they getting kids to follow people around, now?”

“N-No!” you blurt. “I’m not with the DSH. I’m - I’m the girl you ran into yesterday, when you and your friends were running from the DSH officers.”

His face relaxes and you can tell he’s remembering. He lets go of your arm, and you take a step back, peering up at him nervously.

“That still doesn’t explain why you’re following me,” he says. Your gaze drops to your feet.

“I, um.” Suddenly you feel very silly. “Why were those officers chasing you and your friends?”

You’re met with silence and suddenly you feel downright stupid. “I mean, I just - it didn’t look like you all had done much of anything wrong - “ you scramble to explain, never raising your head. “I just, you know, I’ve always heard so many terrible things about Nonconformists and my parents told me you’re all the same and everyone says that you’re all stuck in the Old World and I just wanted to understand…”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa.” The Nonconformist holds up a hand to stop you. “You want to know more about Nonconformism? That in itself sounds awfully Nonconformist.”

“I am _not_ a Nonconformist,” you say firmly. “I just want to understand.”

“Sorry, sorry!” He takes a step back with a slight laugh. “It’s just that, you know, the average conformist doesn’t really care enough to even want to understand. But I completely get you.”

“You do?”

“Yeah, dude. If you want to understand, I’m super happy to explain it to you. But…” He holds up the bag in his hand. “My friends are waiting for these snacks. Do you mind coming along?”

You hesitate. This is a boy you don’t even know. You’ve chased him down on a silly whim. But his smile is genuine and his voice is gentle, and while you don’t quite trust him, you feel safe enough to tag along. You nod, and his smile widens.

“Cool!” He holds out a hand for you to shake. “What’s your name?

“Y/N. You?”

“Dan.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just wanna say that my schedule for this and other stories will probably be pretty erratic until the semester ends. Basically I'll be updating when I have the time and energy.


	3. Chapter 3

“I’m, uh, sorry about grabbing you like that, by the way” Dan says sheepishly. “I was just freaked out and it wasn’t cool of me to do that.”

“It’s fine,” you assure him, eyeing the bag he’s carrying. “So, what’s in the bag?”

“Oh, well, when my friends and I hang out, we like to get stuff from this little store that sells Old World-style snacks,” Dan says. “And it was my turn to go buy the snacks this time.” he pauses for a second. “Most people don’t really go there because it’s all Old World shit so the store isn’t doing very well but, like… We try to shop there as much as we can. Hey, do you wanna try some?”

Dan starts to dig around in the bag, but you shake your head. “Can you tell me why you were getting chased by the DSH?”

Dan leaves the bag alone and nods, looking up at the late afternoon sky to think. “My friends and I were walking around and, like, those officers heard us using ‘socially unhealthy’ language - swearing up a fuckin’ storm. And it wouldn’t have gone so bad if all of us weren’t breaking clothing regulation in, like, a thousand different ways, and if all of us didn’t each have like at least one standing citation each…”

You look Dan over. He isn’t dressed nearly as wildly as some of the Nonconformists you’ve seen on television, but his hair breaks regulation on its own. You know that the sleek black jacket he’s wearing must be fake leather, but you wonder how he got his hands on it. The rings on his fingers, the holes in his jeans… You silently bet that he’s been cited thousands of times for it all.

“…So when the officers were like, ‘Hey, you!’ we all just kinda panicked and Ross started running with Holly and then the rest of us just kinda had to follow. But we know this part of the city pretty well and it’s not gridded, so they don’t have it mapped out on their crazy visors, so it was pretty easy to lose them.”

“You all looked really scared,” you note. Dan looks at you as if you’ve said something silly.

“Of course we were!” he replies. “None of us really want to end up in recal therapy, and they definitely would’ve put us there for running.”

“So why are you a Nonconformist?” you ask. “I mean, if you’re so worried about getting recalibrated…”

“Well, everyone has their own reasons,” Dan explains. “Like, for me it’s just a matter of me not wanting the government to tell me how I can and can’t dress and how to talk and shit like that. And I guess that kind of applies to every Nonconformist, but for some it goes a little bit deeper.”

Abruptly Dan stops walking, and you look up at the building the two of you are now standing before. It doesn’t elicit much in you; it’s just a run-down Old World building in your eyes. Dan opens the door and motions for you to step inside.

“My friends are cool,” he promises you as you step past him. “They won’t care that you’re conformist - not that there’s anything wrong with that. They’re super chill.”

You say nothing, standing awkwardly in in what looks like a foot of Old World dust and trying not to cough. Rubbing your nose, you try to ignore the building’s musty scent, but you can’t help but wonder why anyone would want to hang out in a place like this.

Dan motions for you to follow him to a set of stairs. You’re hesitant - this building is awfully old, after all. But Dan trots up the steps without a hint of trepidation and so you follow, planting your feet firmly on each step - steps that have been swept free of dust. They seem sturdy enough, but the building groans around you and you can’t bring yourself to trust the crumbling structure.

As you continue to ascend the stairs, you hear voices growing louder. You look up at Dan’s back, watching his untamed curls bounce against thin shoulders. The pit of nervousness you felt when lying to your mother returns to your stomach, but you’re in far too deep to turn back now.

You follow Dan into what you guess used to be an office space, and he calls out, “I’m back! And I brought a new friend!”

You try to pretend you’re not hiding behind him, eyes first darting to exposed brick walls, to old shiny ventilation ducts, and finally to the people lounging about this office space as if it isn’t falling down around them. Dan dramatically motions to you with the bag of snacks and you feel like the one who is standing out, still dressed in your dull gray school uniform.

“This is Y/N,” he announces. His friends wave enthusiastically to you, responding with a chorus of, “Hi, Y/N!” and Dan points to each person as he introduces them. “Y/N, this is Arin, Suzy, Ross, Barry, Kevin, and Holly.”

It’s all a little much to take in - Suzy and Arin with their matching blond streaks, Holly with her candy pink hair, Barry wearing a patterned button-up the likes of which you’ve never seen in your life but you know is breaking regulation. Ross looks normal except for the odd logo splashed across his shirt, something that you know if cited could result in a fine; the same applies to Kevin, who is also wearing some kind of loose-fitting knitted hat. The most extreme of them all is Suzy, draped in blacks and wearing makeup that you can’t help but find stunning even though you know it’s against regulation.

“Y/N is one of those kids we nearly trampled the other day while running from the DSH,” Dan explains. “She tracked me down because she wanted to know more about Nonconformism.”

All eyes are on you and you rush to amend his statement. “It’s only because I want to understand. I’m _not_ a Nonconformist.”

Ross elbows Holly. “I bet in, like, two weeks she’ll be a Nonconformist.”

You frown, but Dan pulls out a chair for you and you take a seat. Unlike the room downstairs, this office space has been cleaned up pretty well. There are old desks against one wall, and some of them still have obsolete computer towers and cracked monitors on them. Against one wall there are floor-to-ceiling shelves, stacked with games in formats you don’t think exist anymore. You’re sure that the content of those Old World disks would give the Minister of Social Health himself a heart attack.

Dan is passing out all the snacks and more than once someone offers you something to try, but you politely turn them down. You feel a touch out of place and you stick silently to Dan’s side, absorbing the way he and all his friends interact. It isn’t much different from the way that you and your friends interact, but you don’t know why this comes as a surprise to you. They might be Nonconformists, but they’re still people. Of course they’d talk and joke and laugh, just like anyone else. You wonder why this is the first time something so simple and obvious has ever occurred to you.

Even though you still feel somewhat out of place here, you feel that all of these people are _good_ people. They don’t fit in with the imagery you’ve been exposed to your entire life. They’re not violent anarchists. They’re kids, like you, hanging out and having a good time, and _you’re_ having a good time, too. Slowly, they’re coaxing you out of your conformist shell. Holly tells you about her birds. Arin and Ross show you their artwork. Suzy offers to do your makeup one day, just for fun. And Dan sings part of a song for you, a song you’ve never heard before - and Old World song, and when he sees you smiling he offers to let you listen to the real song someday soon.

And then you check the time and you find ourself bound to the values you’ve been filled with your entire life. It’s almost curfew. You need to get home. Everyone does. Getting caught out after curfew is an automatic fine.

“I don’t know if I can make it all the way back home before curfew…” you mumble, mostly to yourself. A hand comes down upon your shoulder and you look up at Dan and his sunshine smile.

“I’m sure Arin and Suzy won’t mind giving you a ride,” he offers. “I’m riding with them, too.”

And, of course, Arin and Suzy are more than happy to give you a ride home and soon you’re on the back seat of their car next to a folded-up Dan. Arin turns on some Old World music; Dan bobs his head to the beat, and you sink into the seat, soaking in the melody.

Halfway to your residential zone, you remember something. “Um, Arin? Can you drop me off, like, right outside my residential zone? I’ll walk the rest of the way.”

“Sure, but why?” Arin asks over his shoulder.

You duck your head in shame. “I, uh… I lied to my parents about where I was going earlier. They think I’m at a friend’s house, studying, and it won’t look good if I pull up in front of the house in a car full of people they don’t know.”

“Look at you.” Dan nudges you. “You’re on your way to being a Nonconformist already.”

Arin does as you ask him and lets you out on the sidewalk right at the sign proclaiming that you’re about to enter zone F. But when you reach to close the car door, Dan reaches out and touches your arm.

“Wait - do you want my contact info?” he asks. “I can send you everyone else’s.”

He looks at you and there’s a sort of hope in his eyes that you can’t deny. Not that you would want to - you like Dan. You like his friends. You want to see them again.

You nod with a smile. “Sure.”

It isn’t until you get home that guilt hits you, and it hits you hard. When you open the front door and your parents’ voices welcome you home, you almost can’t make yourself respond. You lied to your parents and spent the day with a group of Nonconformists. You don’t even look up at them as you pass your mother, headed towards the stairs.

“How was your study session with your friend?” you mother asks. Her voice is still full of trust in her good, conformist daughter.

“It was good,” you say quickly.

“Well, your father’s making dinner and it’ll be ready soon. Go get cleaned up, all right?”

You nod and dash up the stairs, but the guilt follows you. And it sits in your chest until you pull out your tablet from your bag and you see Dan’s contact info still on the screen, and suddenly it all washes away. And you don’t know why.

But you don’t mind.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was going to be way, way longer but... I had to stop.


	4. Chapter 4

The next day, routine takes hold of your shoulders, guiding you back into the safe, uniform life you’ve always known. At 6:30, your alarm chirps and rouses you. You eat breakfast with your parents. You shower, get dressed, brush your teeth. Go to school with Mark, Ryan, Matt, and all the rest of your friends.

And then, in the middle of Social Health, you get a message on your tab. A small banner appears in the corner, and you glance up at your teacher. Her back is turned to you. You look to your tablet.

_One new message from Dan Avidan,_ the banner reads. You tap the screen.

“ _Wanna hang out again after school?”_ the message reads.

You shouldn’t reply - you’re in class, after all. You’re not supposed to use your tab during class. But he’s obviously using _his_ in the middle of class, and that thought pushes the image of lanky, fluffy-haired Dan in a bland gray uniform, sitting at a desk in a classroom just like yours. It’s an awkward picture.

“ _I’d love to,”_ you respond. 

“ _Great! I’ll pick you up in the spot where we dropped you off last night then?”_

For the rest of the day all your thoughts are filled with excitement and the lie you’ve got to feed to your parents.

After school, your walk home feels like it’s taking too long, but you don’t want to make your friends think you’re hiding things from them. You smile, you nod, you rush through conversation, and as soon as your house comes into view you blurt a quick goodbye and trot to your front door.

Your father is home this time; you brush past him with a quick hello and you hear him wonder aloud what’s got you in such a rush. You’re not going to wear your uniform today; you jump into a dark grey pair of pants - not real denim, that’s not very common anymore, but made to look like jeans - and a gentle green tee. You’re within clothing regulation. But you won’t be the only one in your school uniform. You grab your bag and then head downstairs.

“Hey, Dad?” you call, and he appears from around the corner with a frown. “A friend of mine is struggling with the material in algebra and I volunteered to help them. Is that okay?”

Your father’s expression relaxes and he smiles. Like your mother, he trusts you. “Of course. Make sure you’re back before curfew.”

You’re already halfway out the door. “I will!”

They trust you so implicitly and you feel a twinge of guilt as you head to the edge of your residential zone. But you don’t dwell on it - Dan is waiting.

There’s a car waiting right where Arin and Suzy dropped you off last night, and you can see a familiar head of hair through the windshield. A smile tugs at your lips. You pick up your pace.

When you knock on the passenger-side window, Dan’s head pops up from his tablet and a smile spreads across his face. As he reaches over to unlock the door, his eyes lock onto yours, and you feel the oddest fluttering in your chest. 

You slide into the seat, closing the door behind you, feeling Dan’s eyes on you the entire time. “What’s with your school bag? You take your textbooks wherever you go?”

You shake your head. “No - I told my parents I was helping another friend with their algebra, and it kind of looks suspicious to not take my algebra notes and textbook along.”

Dan nods in sage understanding. “Of course, of course.” 

He starts the car, and you can’t help but watch him as he drives. He reaches over to turn on the radio, glancing at you as he does so.

“Remember that song I was singing last night?” he asks. You nod. “Wanna hear it?”

He doesn’t wait for you to answer. It’s already playing, and he’s watching you out of the corner of his eye, looking for your reaction.

“A friend of mine managed to dig up a bunch of Old World music for me,” Dan explains. “That’s my favourite thing about the Old World. The music was fuckin’ _amazing!_ There were so many awesome jams, and so many different _kinds_ of music, it’s just - it’s all so amazing…”

He’s so passionate, and you’ve never really met anyone so enthusiastic about music. It isn’t a very big thing anymore - none of the arts are. The arts are a gateway to social unhealthiness, or so you’ve been taught. All the music and art and literature you’ve known has been carefully constructed to prevent too much individuality from shining through. It’s designed to appeal to all in a subdued way. 

But Dan’s passion is endearing and infectious. You listen closely to every note, trying to hear what he does. And then, he starts singing.

“ _Sprawling on the fringes of the city in geometric order, an insulated border,”_ Dan croons, and your attention snaps to him and him alone. “ _In between the bright lights and the far unlit unknown…”_

This, too, is foreign to you. And you love it. You love his voice, gentle and enthralling.

“ _Growing up, it all seemed so onesided. Opinions are provided, the future predecided, detached and subdivided in a mass-production zone. Nowhere is the dreamer or the misfit so alone…”_

And here, listening closely to the lyrics and Dan’s voice, you feel a twinge of understanding - both about Dan and Nonconformism.

You reach the old office far sooner than you would’ve liked. As soon as the car’s cut off and the music stops, you’re already missing Dan’s voice. But you say nothing, following him into the building just like the day before.

But this time, when you get upstairs, you find everyone sitting in tense anger. Suzy is the centre of attention, dressed as beautifully as yesterday - but she’s holding a slip of paper in her hands.

“I can’t get another citation this month,” she says, voice pinched with frustration.

“What happened?” Dan asks.

“Suzy got cited for clothing reg again,” Arin explains. 

“I’ve been doing so good avoiding the DSH,” Suzy adds, dropping the slip of paper onto her lap. “And then they caught me on the way to Arin’s house after school.”

“That fuckin’ sucks, dude,” Dan says, taking a seat on the couch. You rush to join him.

“Yeah,” Suzy sighs. “Like, I know some people have it way worse, because like - yeah, I can’t wear the clothes I like, and that sucks. But some people can’t wear clothes from their culture or can’t speak in their native language and that’s really fuckin’ terrible. But getting cited for wearing the clothes I like sucks.”

She’s right, of course, but something she says has stricken you. _Some people can’t wear clothes from their culture or can’t speak in their native language_. At first, it means little to you - and then you remember the newscast about the Nonconformist communities being denied an audience with the Minister of Social Health and, suddenly, things start to make sense.

You must have some terrible look on your face, because Dan rushes to change the subject. “Hey, why don’t Y/N and I go on a snack run?”

Of course, the idea of sweets brightens the mood a bit, and you sullenly follow Dan out of the office and downstairs. It isn’t until you’re outside that you muster up the courage to ask, “What did Suzy mean, people can’t wear clothes from their culture or speak their native language?”

Dan’s mouth curls in thought. “Well, like, that’s the thing - we’re all supposed to be one uniform people, right? Because, according to the government, an abundance of individuality threatens social health and so we should have one big, uniform culture. But that’s not the way people work.”

He starts to walk down the sidewalk and you trot to keep up with his long strides. “People come from different parts of the world and they speak different languages and wear different clothes and eat different food and do things differently and all that is a part of their culture. But culture, according to the government, separates us rather than bringing us together. So they erase cultures. Force people to dress within clothing reg. Make us all speak English. Your religion, if you have one, is the same as everyone else’s. We all eat the same food and live in the same houses and do everything the same as anyone else, and if you don’t? You get cited. And getting cited for dressing like me or Suzy or Holly is nothing like getting cited for wearing, like, a sari or something. So, long story short, your identity - your culture - is criminalized because it’s Old World.”

Shame crashes down on you like a hot wave. “I - I had no idea. I’d never even thought… I just thought that everyone was the same now and that was good. I thought the Old World was…”

“Don’t get me wrong, the Old World was chock-fuckin’-full of issues,” Dan says. “But the world we live in now isn’t perfect either.” You must look terribly upset, because he rushes to make you feel better. “You’re definitely not the only person to not know this stuff, Y/N. And now you do know, so…”

You don’t feel any better.

“I’ll buy you whatever you want from the store?” Dan tries. You can’t help but smile.

It doesn’t take you too long to reach the store Dan has mentioned so much. It’s small, sitting right on the corner where the mass-production zone ends and the Old World section begins. From what you can tell, it’s a repurposed Old World building. When Dan opens the door, a bell chimes.

It’s just a small grocery store; Dan grabs your hand and pulls you to the candy and snack aisle. Eagerly he shows you the different Old World snacks - things like gummy worms and chocolate bars called “Three Musketeers” and little round things in a red pack called “Skittles,” which are apparently a favourite of his. With that new knowledge, you tell him to buy you the Skittles, and Dan happily gathers everyone else’s snacks and the two of you go to pay.

The cashier is a wrinkled old man with warm brown skin. He smiles at the both of you as he takes the units to pay for the candy, quietly thanking you for your patronage in a small, accented voice. You fleetingly think that his beard is breaking regulation - and then you wipe the thought from your mind. It doesn’t matter if he’s breaking regulation or not.

You leave the store with Dan and he shoves your bag of Skittles at you. “Try ‘em!”

Carefully, you rip open the corner of the plasticky pack, pouring a single Skittle into your hand. It’s an oddly-shaped, round think with a tiny white “s” on top; you glance up at Dan and then toss it onto your tongue.

You bite down on it and the sweetness is overwhelming. You’ve never in your life eaten anything so sweet. But you don’t hate it. You could, in fact, get used to it. You smile up at Dan’s hopeful expression.

“They’re good,” you say, and he grins. “But, um, Dan?”

“Yeah?”

“Thanks for teaching me about Nonconformism. Can we… Can I hang out with you guys again tomorrow, too?”

“Aw, Y/N, you don’t have to ask.” Dan looks at you as if you’ve said something adorable. “Of course you can.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I haven't mentioned this before, but if it isn't obvious, this story was inspired by Ninja Sex Party's cover of Subdivisions.  
> Also, tablets here are a bit smaller than, say, an iPad Mini and serve all the purposes of any mobile device and shit.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I just want to thank everyone for all the kudos and lovely comments I've gotten so far! I only started writing this story on a whim and only posted it on AO3 so I could say I had somewhere to put it. I honestly never expected anyone to like it. I hope you all continue to enjoy this story, as well as the stories I have planned for the future!

After spending two days with Dan and his friends, a new routine has taken over your life. Now, you come home from school, change clothes, lie to your parents, and then go out to the usual spot and jump in the car with whoever happens to be picking you up, though it’s usually Dan. Your new routine becomes the center of your life. You’re having more fun than you’ve ever had, learning more than ever, and because of it all you can’t see your parents growing more and more frustrated with the amount of time you’re spending outside of the house. But they don’t say anything, choosing to trust you all the same.

Meanwhile, you’re playing Old World video games with Arin and Barry. You’re letting Suzy do your makeup and hair - and you look amazing, even if it’s a little uncomfortable. You’re spending the day with Holly, helping her take care of the pigeons she’s rescued.

But your friends from school, much like your parents, are growing frustrated with your continued absences in their lives. You don’t notice, at least until Mark says something about on the way home from school one day.

“Man, Y/N, you’ve just been rushing home after school everyday,” he grumbles. “We never talk or hang out anymore. You’re always busy.”

Something within you freezes with guilt. You honestly haven’t given much thought to Mark, or Matt or Ryan, or _any_ of your school friends. Your field of vision has shrunk, and there’s only been enough room for Dan and all his friends. 

“I’m sorry,” you say sheepishly. “I’ve just been so busy…”

“Doing what?” Mark asks, and you pretend not to have heard.

“I’ll make it up to you,” you promise. “We should hang out again soon.”

“How about today?” Mark suggests, and your gaze snaps up to his excited, hopeful expression. “I’m free. We could go to the shopping district, grab a bite to eat…”

“Today doesn’t work.” Your words tumble out of your mouth in a rush. “I’ve already made plans.”

Mark’s face crumbles and you quickly look away. You can’t stand to see him upset, but you _have_ made plans, and they’re very similar to what Mark’s suggesting… except with Dan instead. 

“Well, then…” Mark pushes his glasses up on his nose, ducking his head. “Some other time, I guess.”

You nod silently, and relief washes over you when your house comes into view. You mutter a goodbye and shuffle away, swallowing back the guilt that’s crawling up your throat. You feel terrible, but at least Mark’s given you a new lie for your parents.

So you run inside and upstairs, change clothes and shove your tab into your purse, and on your way back down you shout to your parents that you’re going to the shopping district with Mark. But today, you don’t get a cheerful reply. Today, you’re greeted with two matching frowns at the door.

“Um.” You skid to a halt. “Is something wrong?”

“You’ve been spending an awful lot of time outside of the house,” your mother replies. The trust you had become so used to is tinged with suspicion. “Your father and I think it’s becoming a bad habit.”

You don’t understand. Your mouth opens in protest, then shuts again. Dan is waiting on you, and you don’t want to let him down. But if your parents are growing distrustful, that could spell the end of your time with Dan altogether…

You wipe the disbelief from your face and school your features into meek apologeticness. You’re still their good little girl - you just have to convince them as such. The words that leave your mouth feel like a script, and you almost can’t believe that you’ve become such a good liar. 

“I’m sorry,” you say sheepishly. “I’ll cut back on the going out. But can I still go out with Mark today? I promised him, and I don’t want to let him down.”

Your parents exchange a look. You hold your breath.

“All right,” your mother concedes, but your father cuts in.

“ _But,”_ he says, and your heart sinks a little, “if you’re not in an hour before curfew, you’re grounded. And after this, you have to cut down on outings. No more than two or three times a week.”

Those conditions sound awful to you, but you don’t have any choice but to give in. You smile and nod, and your parents step aside to let you pass. The relief you felt earlier after the exchange with Mark is nothing compared to what you feel now.

Dan is, of course, waiting for you in the usual spot. You jump into the passenger side and immediately start apologising for the slight delay, but he assures you that it’s fine.

“If anything, I should be the one apologising,” he says jokingly. “You’re stuck with just me for the day. Everyone else is busy.”

“Don’t be like that,” you reply, smiling. “I’m glad to be spending time with you.”

“Aw, you…” Dan looks away, scratching his chin embarrassedly. As he does this, you look him over. He’s dressed in a way that you guess can be considered “normal” - as close to conformist as you think he’s capable of getting in a blue T-shirt and jeans that are, surprisingly, without rips and holes. The only thing standing out about him today are his rings, which aren’t too noticeable, and his hair. You suppose he must’ve chosen to dress this way because the two of you are going to be in the crowded, bustling shopping district and getting harrassed by disapproving citizens or the DSH aren’t exactly on the agenda, but… his _hair._ It makes him stand out like a sore thumb amidst all the muted colors and the tasteful, within-regulation hairstyles you’re going to be surrounded with.

“Dan,” you call, and he glances at you. “Don’t you get in trouble all the time for your hair?”

He reaches up to tug at the curls near his cheek. “Well, sometimes. Of course I’ve been cited by the DSH for it before, but most of the time no one says anything. I mean, I do get a lot of dirty looks from random people who can tell I’m Nonconformist. And, oh, my _teachers._ I started letting my hair grow out a while ago and at first it was fine, but now it’s all like…” He lifts his voice into a mocking falsetto. “‘Leigh, don’t you think your hair’s getting a little too long?’ Fuck you, Dr Smith.”

You laugh, and then realise something. “Wait - Leigh?”

“What, I didn’t tell you? My first name is Leigh. Daniel is my middle name.” His lips settle into a pout. “I wish the teachers would call me Dan or Danny like I’ve been asking them to for, like, forever.”

You cock your head thoughtfully. “Danny…”

“Uh, yeah?”

“No, I’m just - “ You laugh, a little embarrassed. “Trying it out. I thought your name was just Dan, honestly. But I like Danny a little better.”

There’s a moment of silence, and for a moment you wonder if you’ve made things awkward. But then, Danny speaks again.

“Y/N…” he begins slowly, and there’s a sincere curiosity and seriousness that makes you turn in your seat. “Would you consider yourself a Nonconformist now?”

Your gaze drops to your lap. “…I’m not sure.”

Danny is silent for a moment. “Well, whether you’re conformist or Nonconformist, I like you all the same.” He’s quick to add, “And the others, they like you regardless, too. I’m not, like, trying to make you pick a side or anything. I was just genuinely curious to know if you’d changed your mind after all you’d learned and shit.”

“Even if I did consider myself a Nonconformist, it isn’t as though I’d be able to express it,” you explain, a little resentfully. “My parents would neer stand for it. They’d ship me off for recal therapy the moment they even thought I was becoming a Nonconformist. I haven’t even told them that I’ve been hanging out with you and everyone else. They’d never let me see you again.”

“That’s okay. I wouldn’t want you to get in trouble for being friends with me, and I definitely don’t think I could stand never seeing you again.”

Danny’s words are flattering, but you’ve also just remembered something important. “Oh, man. I forgot - my parents said I have to stop going out so often. I have to cut it down to two or three days a week.”

Danny groans. “Aw, man, that fuckin’ sucks! Oh, well. We can always just message each other.”

You laugh, but you can’t shake the feeling that you’ve forgotten something - something important. Something else your parents said, maybe? You push the feeling to the back of your mind as Danny pulls into a parking space outside of a fast food restaurant. You’ll likely remember it later.

You enter the restaurant with Danny and the two of you go up to an order terminal together. You tell Danny what you’d like and watch him input your orders on the touchscreen; your mind is still trying to remember whatever it is you’ve forgotten. You had to cut down on outings… but what was the other thing your parents had said?

“Y/N?”

A voice pulls you from your reverie, and you look up at Danny, but he isn’t the one who said your name. In fact, he’s looking over your head. You turn to see what he’s looking at, and immediately your heart clenches with dread.

Mark is standing there, looking from you to Danny. You can see he’s putting things together, jumping to conclusions. He’s looking at Danny’s rings and his hair, and the growing frown on his face tells you all you need to know about his feelings on the situation.

“So,” he says slowly, voice low. “These were the ‘plans’ you mentioned earlier?”

“Mark, I, uh…” You flounder, trying to find an explanation, an excuse, anything. Danny is silent. “Sorry, I just… I had made plans with… Uh, this is Danny, he’s just a - “

“You could do way better than a Nonconformist, Y/N,” Mark interrupts, and his voice is deliberately just a touch too loud. Eyes and ears are drawn to your conversation, and then to Danny. It’s just like you’d observed before - his hair makes him stand out like a sore thumb. Looks are turning dirty. People are muttering.

Anger swells in your chest. “Mark - !”

A gentle touch to your arm kills the words on your tongue. You whip around to look at Danny, and you stare in disbelief at the unperturbed expression on his face. “Y/N, it’s fine. Let’s just go somewhere else before someone finds a reason to call the DSH on me.”

You can’t help but give Mark one last hurt glare, but you follow Dan out of the building and to his car. The second the doors are closed, you turn to him, apologies spilling out over your lips.

“Danny, I am so sorry about that. I - “

“Y/N,” he says, and once again the tranquility in his voice makes your words fade away. “Don’t worry about it. It happened and what your friend did was honestly a dick move but… it’s over. I’m not bothered by it. It’s fine.”

You sink low in your seat as Danny starts the car and pulls away from the restaurant. Vicious thoughts form in your head of all the things you want to say to Mark. Just wait until you see him at school tomorrow…

“I know something that’ll cheer you up.”

You look up at Danny but don’t say anything, lifting your eyebrows.

“Y/N, have you ever seen outside of the wall before?”


	6. Chapter 6

“Y/N, have you ever seen outside of the wall before?”

You stare at Danny, unsure if you’ve heard him correctly. “No, I’ve never seen outside of the wall, Danny. No one has.”

He’s messing with you - he has to be. Every city is surrounded by massive walls, and you can’t imagine that it’s possible to dig through or under them. They’re far too tall to climb. But Danny’s got a look on his face that suggests otherwise.

“I have,” he says. “And I’m not the only one.”

You can only stare at him in confusion. Even the tunnels connecting your city to other neighboring cities are solid, so that on the way view of the land is impossible. You can’t imagine how he’s seen the outside of the wall.

“You know the Old World part of town, where we hang out?” Danny asks. You nod. Of course you do. “You’ve seen what kind of condition that side of town is in. Everything’s abandoned, all the buildings are falling apart… The city government hasn’t even bothered to grid it. Well, the wall’s in the same condition - _and_ the whole area’s unmonitored, so that once you’re on the other side, there’s no way to catch you.”

You’re silent, just looking at him. That pit of nervousness you felt the first time you lied to your mother and just before meeting all of Danny’s friends has returned, clenching your stomach painfully. Danny takes his eyes off the road just for a moment, long enough to glance at you and see the anxiety written all over your face.

“I mean, I just wanted to show it to you,” he says. “If, like, the idea of going outside of the wall freaks you out too much, we can just go to my place and hang out there or something.”

“N-no, I’m fine,” you protest. “I want to see it.”

“Are you sure? We really don’t have to if you don’t want to.”

“I’m sure.” You say this firmly. “I really want to see it.”

Danny nods, reaching over and turning up the radio, and his Old World music pounds its way into your bones. You sit back, closing your eyes. _You aren’t scared_ , you tell yourself, even though you can’t even imagine what the world outside the wall looks like. You’ve never even _wondered_ about it. You don’t know how you or anyone else could be so complacent with life inside the city, never even stopping to think about the world you live in and the world outside.

Then you remember that, not long ago, you’d never in your life once thought about whatever laid outside the wall, not even fleetingly. And you remember that you _do_ have an image of the outside sitting in your mind, dusty and foggy - an image fed to you a long time ago in a history classroom where a teacher gave an impassioned speech on the great follies of the Old World, punctuating his lecture with photographs of the aftermath of a war that had taken place centuries ago. A war that had ended the Old World and brought in the new one.

It doesn’t take you long to reach the Old World zone. You watch the dilapidated buildings pass through the window. You’ve never gone this deep into the Old World zone before. You try to picture the Old World the way Danny and the others have described it to you, but the image isn’t clear.

Soon, the wall is rising up before you. You’ve never been so close to the wall before, and it sends a shiver down your spine that you can’t explain. You shake it off, glaring defiantly up at the crumbling giant looming ahead.

The car stops. The music dies. Danny looks at you, but you don’t look back, pretending to focus on undoing your seatbelt. You don’t want him to see the trepidation in your eyes. After a moment, he gets out of the car, and you follow.

As you walk around the car to meet him, he takes your hand and your fingers are lost in the warmth of his large palm. He leads you closer to the crumbling wall, where a ragged, dark hole awaits you.

“A friend and I found this hole one day,” Danny explains. “Someone else found this part of the wall and saw that it was already falling apart, and they made themselves a way out.”

“Someone dug through the wall and left the city?” You almost can’t believe it.

“It would’ve taken a long time, but the hole went all the way through when we found it.  Somebody, a long time ago, got out.” There’s an odd look in Danny’s eyes. “I wonder where they went.”

“If they wanted to leave the city, why didn’t they just take the tunnels?” you ask.

“It wasn’t about just getting to another city, Y/N,” Danny replies quietly. “It was about leaving - this. All of this.” He motions to the wall, then behind him towards the city proper. “Not every place in the world makes its citizens live this way.”

Danny lets go of your hand and moves towards the hole. He kneels next to it, but looks up at you first. You must look nervous, because he says, “We don’t have to do this if you’re scared, Y/N.”

You _are_ scared, but you want to see what he sees. What he’s _seen_. “It’s safe, right?”

“As far as I know.”

That isn’t exactly reassuring, but you swallow back your fears, drop to your knees, and crawl into the hole.

It’s darker and longer than you anticipated, and after a moment of shuffling along, you freeze. Danny’s hand lands on your foot, then retreats quickly. “Y/N?”

“I’m okay,” you breathe, perhaps more brusquely than necessary, and then continue moving forward.

You emerge into grass - a lot of tall grass. It itches, and you scramble to your feet only to find that it still comes up to your armpits. The sunlight that hits you feels differently than the sunlight within the wall. You lift a hand to shield your face, squinting at the landscape before you, as Danny comes to stand next to you.

You’ve never seen such a broad expanse of land before. A blanket of grass a deeper shade of green than any you’ve ever seen covers the earth as far as the eye can see. Buildings dot the landscape - Old World style houses, still standing as nature slowly swallows them whole. And there’s _wind._ Not just a light breeze, like inside the wall some days - _gusts_ of warm wind push against you, and the air tastes like the massive trees you can see in the distance, hearty and thick and sweet. You can see the looming monoliths of an Old World city’s carcass teetering near the edge of the horizon. And even further out, close to what nearly looks like the edge of the earth, another city’s walls stand unmoving, framed by the dark shadows of a storm crawling towards you. You can see lightning dancing in those distant, black clouds.

Goosebumps blossom on your skin. “Danny?”

His hand finds yours again and squeezes. “Yeah?”

You don’t say anything - you had called his name simply to make sure that he was still there, because suddenly, you feel very, very small. The world laid out before you seems to have no end. That faraway Old World city looks unreachable. The New World city beyond it is an entire universe away.

The images of a war-torn earth, scorched and scarred and ravaged by man, has vanished from your memory. _This_ is stained into your mind.

After a long moment of silence - the loudest silence you’ve ever experienced - you look up at Danny, only to find that he’s already looking at you. There’s a softness in his gaze that makes it impossible to speak, so you tear your eyes away from his and return them to the coming storm.

“Danny,” you say, once your voice has returned. “Where do you think the person who dug the hole went?”

“I think they went north,” Danny replies. “At least, that’s where I would go.”

“What’s up north?”

“Canada. I made some friends from there through a music forum I found. It was hard because, like, we have a - an _Intranet_ here and we normally can’t get the stuff that other people get outside of this country. But my friend - he’s really smart, he helped me figure it out. Canada doesn’t do what we do here. There’s no Nonconformists and conformists. There’s no DSH. There’s no recal therapy.”

The dreaminess in his words makes you look up at him again. He’s not watching you anymore; he’s staring off at something you can’t see. 

“I want to go there,” Danny says. “I don’t want to spend my entire life in these walls.” He looks down at you with a small smile. “If I up and ran off to Canada, would you come with me?”

The question catches you off guard, but half a “yes” has already tumbled out of your mouth before you even realise it. You catch yourself and stop to think about it. Would you, if you had the chance, leave the city? Leave your parents and everything you’ve ever known behind?

“How would you get there?” you ask finally. 

Danny shrugs. “I honestly don’t know. I don’t think there’s really a way, unless I wanted to walk the entire way to Canada. I don’t even really know which way to go. I don’t know how to read a map or anything. It’s just a dream, you know? Everyone has one. Something to look forward to, even if it never comes true.”

You squeeze his hand. “I think you could make it. One day. You’ll find a way.”

His smile makes the storm, growing closer and closer, seem like a single cloud in a blue sky. “You think so?”

“I do.”

Danny lets go of your hand, reaching up to touch your face. His fingers ghost across your cheek tentatively. “Y/N, can I…?”

“Yeah?” The word is barely a whisper. The wind whisks it away.

“Can I kiss you?”

You stare at him and, after a moment, respond. “Yeah.”

And he does. It’s soft, timid, and short, and as soon as he pulls away he’s searching your face for any indication of discomfort or displeasure. But there isn’t any. You grip his jacket in both hands, stretch up on the tips of your toes, and this time, you kiss him. Danny pulls you closer.

Time passes and the two of you climb up onto a portruding part of the wall to sit above the grass and watch the storm creep closer and closer. Danny’s jacket is draped over your shoulders and you’re leaning against his chest, listening to him hum a song that, like so many others, you’ve never heard before. Thunder rumbles in the distance. Between it and Danny’s humming, it’s a gentle lullaby and before you know it, you’ve dozed off.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I just wanted to be clear - this story isn't necessarily meant to be some sort of commentary on today's society or anything? But you're all free to interpret or analyze this story in any way you see fit.


	7. Chapter 7

The crack of thunder is what jerks you from sleep, and for a moment you stare blankly out into darkness until a large, cold raindrop hits your cheek. You remember where you are, what you were doing, who you’re with, and what time it -

Wait, what time _is_ it?

You grope around for your bag and pull out your tab, feeling Danny begin to stir next to you. Your cry of dismay is what wakes him, and he sits up quickly as you grab his arm.

“Y/N? What’s wrong?” he demands, disoriented, then splutters as another huge drop of rain hits him in the face. “Wh - it’s raining?”

“Danny,” you cry, lifting up your tablet. “I forgot I was supposed to be home an hour before curfew! I’m already more than ten minutes late!”

Lightning strikes somewhere in the field, and for a moment the two of you are blinded.  Overhead, the clouds finally break, and a torrent of rain crashes down upon you both.

“Oh, fuck!” Danny scrambles down off the wall, reaching up to help you down as well. You shove your tablet back into your bag and grab his hands, carefully jumping down into the tall grass below. He pulls you to the hole in the wall, gently pushing you forward to go through first.

It’s wet and gross and you feel tears pricking at your eyes. Not only are you late, but you’re going to be a filthy mess by the time you get home. When you scramble out of the hole, your pants are soaked and though its too dark to see, you’re sure they’re caked with mud. 

Danny is close behind you, and the two of you jump into his car. When the lights come on, you look up at him; he’s a soaked as you are, and stray curls are plastered to his damp face. You look down to confirm your fears - you’re a muddy mess now. A quiet sob bubbles out of you, and Danny looks up as he starts the car.

“Oh - Y/N, please don’t cry,” Danny begs, distressed. “I’ll get you home as fast as I can.”

“It doesn’t matter,” you reply tearfully. “I’m already late. And look at me, I’m a mess. They’re going to _kill_ me.”

“I - I’m sorry.” Danny is clearly bothered. “This is my fault - “

“No, it’s not.” You cover your face with your hands. “I was the one who forgot. It’s not your fault, Danny.”

“Y/N, I - “

“Can we just… go, please?” You don’t uncover your face to look at him. “I’m going to be in enough trouble as it is.”

Silently, Danny starts driving.

You sit there for a moment, willing yourself to stop crying, and after a moment you sit up straight and take a deep breath. It’s then that you realize that you’re still wearing Danny’s jacket, and you begin to shrug it off your shoulders. You wouldn’t want to accidentally wear home. 

It takes twenty minutes to get to zone F.

Danny pulls up to the usual spot, and you start to get out of the car - but he grabs your arm. When you look at him, he presses a quick kiss to your lips.

“It’ll all be okay,” he assures you quietly, and then he lets you go.

You don’t look back as you run to your house in the rain, trying to conjure up excuses the whole time. _Mark and I lost track of time. I’m so sorry. I know, I’m a mess. I fell on the way out of his house. I know I’m still grounded. It won’t happen again._

But when you throw open the front door and cross the threshold of your house, all of that flies out the window. Your parents are waiting for you, and the expressions they’re wearing tell you that you’re in a deeper hole than just being late.

Your mother’s mouth falls open as she takes you in, dripping in the doorway. “Oh, my _God,_ Y/N. What have you been _doing?”_

You don’t get a chance to answer as your father steps forward. “Don’t answer that. We know _exactly_ what you’ve been doing.”

“Wh-what?” you stammer, shivering as you reach back to close the front door. “Mark and I, we -“

“Don’t give me that, Y/N,” your father spits, and you flinch away. “We said to be home an hour before curfew and when you weren’t here, _we called Mark.”_

Speechless, you can only stare at him.

“According to Mark,” your mother joins in coldly, “he did ask you to go to the shopping district with him, but you said you were busy and had other plans.”

“You’ve been out riding around with some Nonconformist boy,” your father accuses. “ _Danny,_ he said his name was.”

Your mind races. Part of you is full of hot anger and disbelief at Mark for exposing you like this. The other half is full of fear. You’re never going to be allowed to see Danny again. And if you can’t even go out to see Danny, you’ll never get to hang out with Arin, Suzy, Holly, or any of the others. You can’t bear it. Your heart clenches, and another lie spills out of your mouth before you even think to stop it.

“N-no, that’s not true!” you blurt. “I mean, yes, I was with Danny and not Mark. But Danny isn’t a Nonconformist! He’s just… it’s just that…”

“Do you expect us to believe that, as much as you’ve lied to us these past two weeks?” your mother asks. “I can’t imagine that a single thing you told us you were doing is true.”

“It doesn’t matter,” your father growls. “It _won’t_ happen anymore. You are grounded _indefinitely_ , young lady, and you are _not_ to see that Nonconformist boy again. And if we ever think you have, I swear we’ll have you sent off for recalibration therapy.”

Horror shoots through you, and you rush forward and grab your father’s arm. “ _No!_ Dad, I swear I’m telling the truth. He isn’t a Nonconformist, I _promise._ I’ll prove it to you, even!”

“Oh, you’re going to prove it to me?” Your father shakes you off. His tone is almost mocking.

“You’ve never even met him! Once you meet him, you’ll see that I’m telling the truth!” You’re begging now. “Please - Dad, I swear he’s not a Nonconformist.”

Your father looks at you hard, then to your mother. There’s a long silence, and you hold your breath, waiting for them to decide.

And then, finally, your father grunts, “Fine. We’ll meet the boy. But you’re _still_ grounded, do you hear me?”

You don’t care about being grounded. Right now, you’re so relieved you think you might faint. You don’t even hesitate or resist when your mother orders you to go shower and then go to your room. You just do as she says, exhaustion settling into into your bones as the shower washes away the cold rain and the mud. You go back to your room, throw on some warm pajamas, climb into bed, and then you video-call Danny on your tab.

His face appears on the screen within seconds. He’s changed shirts and there’s a towel around his neck; his hair is still damp and hanging limply around his face. He smiles at you, and even though you’re still in hot water, you smile wearily back.

_“What’s up, baby girl?”_ he asks, a touch of playfulness in his tone. He’s never called you by a nickname before, but you like it. It makes you feel warm inside. _“How did it go with your parents?”_

Your smile disappears. “I’m grounded, but I knew that would happen. But here’s the thing, Danny - they called Mark when I was late, and he told them the truth.”

Something as close to anger as you’ve ever seen on Danny’s face flickers over his expression. 

“And… they said I wasn’t allowed to see you again, _but_ I convinced them to change their mind.”

Danny seems genuinely surprised. _“How?”_

“I, uh…” You hesitate. “I told them you weren’t a Nonconformist and that I’d prove it to them. So… now my parents want to meet you, and we have to convince them that you’re not a Nonconformist.”

_“That’s not too bad,”_ Danny says, and you’re relieved that he doesn’t seem bothered in the slightest. _“I can handle that. See? I told you everything would be okay.”_

“Yeah, I just…” You sink down against the headboard. “I can’t believe that Mark would do that to me. He has no idea what telling my parents nearly did. My dad was talking about recal therapy and everything.”

_“It all worked out, didn’t it?”_ Dan asks soothingly. _“Yeah, that was a HUGE dick move your friend pulled. But everything’s basically okay now, right? Don’t worry about it.”_

“Yeah, okay…” You say that, but anger still hums in the back of your mind.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hate to plug myself here, but I'd like to invite you all to check out my YouTube and SoundCloud. I'm just a simple cover artist. My username is safirestar09 on both~ There's also links to them on my writing blog, http://sub-divisions.tumblr.com/


	8. Chapter 8

You wake up the next morning ready to submit to that old routine. After school, you’ll come home and you’ll stay home. Danny has promised that he’ll put together a group-chat with everyone in it after school, and you look forward to talking to everyone, even if it is over text.

You go downstairs for breakfast and murmur a good morning to your parents. The response is curt and unenthusiastic, and you uncomfortably bow your head towards your meal. They’re still angry with you, which is no surprise in and of itself. You hurriedly eat your breakfast, eager to escape the heavy atmosphere at the table.

You leave home a tad earlier than normal. The sky is still filled with heavy grey clouds and the world is still soaked from the storm last night. You walk quickly, hoping to avoid Mark. There’s a hot coal of anger burning in your chest, but as you power-walk past row upon row of identical houses, you try to channel the serenity you feel with Danny. You remember how calmly he handled the incident at the restaurant, how after and then again last night he gently pushed you to forget about it and move on. You silently tell yourself that you just need some space and some time before you can look Mark in the face again.

And then Mark’s voice calls out to you from somewhere behind you and all of that flies out the window.

At first, you don’t even stop walking. But you hear his footsteps rushing up from behind you and then his hand grips your shoulder and your feet freeze mid-step on the damp concrete.

“Hey, Y/N - “ He’s out of breath from running to catch up with you. “Listen - “

You shrug his hand off of you and start walking again. You don’t want to listen. You don’t want to look at him.

He says your name again and you keep walking. You hear Matt and Ryan catch up with him, hear them ask in hushed tones what’s going on. Mark, a little gruffly, tells them not to worry about it - he will handle it. Something about that drives another red-hot nail of anger into your spine.

All throughout the day, Mark tries to “handle it.” He tries to corner you at your locker and you squeeze past him, never looking him in the face. He passes you a note in history and you quietly crumple it in your hands before walking over to the trash can and throwing it away. You get a message from him on your tab during anatomy and you turn your tab completely off, not even bothering to read the message.

When you leave anatomy to go to lunch, Mark is waiting outside the door for you.

You try to brush past him, but he grabs your wrist. “Why are you ignoring me?”

For the first time all day, you turn to face him. You fix him with the hottest glare you can muster, snatching your wrist out of his hand. “Leave me alone, Mark.”

“Y/N, if you’d just listen then you’d understand,” he begins, but you’re already starting to walk away. The hallway is quickly emptying as students rush off to lunch, but Mark still keeps his voice low and his words quick as he hurries to keep up with you. “I know you’re angry with me, and I understand completely -”

“Then you’ll understand why I don’t want to talk to you,” you interrupt curtly.

“ - but I did what I did for your sake. That Nonconformist guy is no good for you, Y/N. He’s nothing but trouble.”

“Mark, shut up and leave me alone,” you growl.

Mark’s response is to grab your arm again, pulling you back towards him. You try to shake him off, but his grip is tight and he won’t let go. With no choice but to stand there and listen to him, you glower moodily up at him.

“Just listen to me, okay?” Mark’s tone is low and he’s speaking carefully, as if to a child. “I told your parents because I was worried about you, Y/N. And I know your parents were angry and you got in some trouble, but you have to understand: Nonconformists are dangerous, and not just to your social health - you know that. That guy - Danny, or whatever you said his name was - he’s no exception. You’re just another easy conformist girl to him.”

“‘ _Easy conformist girl?’”_ you repeat incredulously.

But Mark just keeps going. “All he’s gonna do is fill your head up with Nonconformist lies and the next thing you know, you’re in recal therapy and he’s doing it all again to some other girl.”

“Danny would never do that - “

“You’ve seen it happen before, Y/N. We both have. All Nonconformists are the same. He’s just using you. You don’t mean a thing to him. And by the time he’s done playing with you, he’ll have dragged you down to his level and you’ll be no better than him.”

“You don’t know anything about Danny - “

“And how much do _you_ know about him? You know better than this, Y/N. You’re just all caught up in this - this infatuation with something that you know is wrong. He’s taking advantage of that. You need to get away from this guy before something happens that you regret - “

You finally jerk your arm out his grip. “Stop it! You don’t know what you’re talking about!”

“Y/N - “

“Mark, just _shut the fuck up and leave me alone!”_

Your shrill cry echoes about the empty hall and even you are a touch startled by what just left your mouth. It seems silly, almost, but you’ve never sworn before. Swearing, as you’ve always been taught, is socially unhealthy. Danny and his friends are the first people in your life to swear on a regular basis.

But Mark, too, is taken aback, and you take this time to get away from him. You turn and take off down the hallway, dashing into the girl’s bathroom where you know he won’t follow. You go into a stall, locking the door behind you and dropping your bag on the floor. Outside of the bathroom, you can hear Mark calling for you to come out, but you don’t even move. There’s a moment of silence; you hear him sigh and walk away.

As soon as you’re sure he’s gone, hot tears begin to well up in your eyes. You _know_ none of what he said was true. Danny isn’t that kind of person, and he would never hurt you. You’re sure of it. But not once did Mark stop to listen to you. Not once did he consider how you felt about it all. He tried to explain it all to you as if you weren’t capable of understanding - as if you were a dumb, stupid airhead, head-over-heels for the bad boy. As if you needed him to show you the way.

You reach down and pull out your tab.

 _Danny I don’t want to be here,_ you type, not knowing how else to put it.

In seconds you get a reply. _What’s wrong? Are you okay? What happened?_

_I tried to avoid him all day but I ended up having a run-in with Mark and I can’t believe some of the things he said. I don’t want to see him but I still have literature and social health with him_

A pause. And then: _Do you want me to come get you?_

You hesitate. It’d be great to just leave - but it’s the middle of the school day. You still have three classes to go to. _We can’t skip class_

_It wouldn’t be my first time and it won’t be my last. Besides a lot of kids leave campus during lunchtime so it’s not like we’ll stand out. If it’s that bad I can come get you and we can talk_

You’ve never in your life skipped class. If your parents find out, and if they find out that you were with Danny, you’ll be in more trouble than you’re already in. But you don’t want to sit through two more classes with Mark. Even if you do stay, you won’t be able to pay attention. After a quick moment of thought, you reply. _Okay._

_Be there in five. Meet me by the tennis court_

You put your tablet back in your bag. You hesitate to leave the bathroom, wondering if Mark would go so far as to wait for you to leave, but when you finally muster up the courage to poke your head out the door, he isn’t there. You sigh in relief and hurry off down the hall.

The tennis courts are on the side of the school building, right next to the gym. They’re in plain sight of the road, but just out of view of the building’s front doors. No one is out right now - everyone is in lunch, or as Danny said, has left to get lunch - and you drop your bag on the ground and lean against the fence, waiting for Danny’s car to appear around the corner. And when it does, a rush of calm washes over you. Danny’s here.

His car rolls to a stop and he unfolds himself out of the driver’s seat and you don’t even say anything. You just move forward and throw your arms around him and bury your face in his chest.

“What happened?” he asks, and you try to gulp back unshed tears.

“Mark is - “ You pause, searching for the right word, voice muffled by Danny’s school blazer. “Mark’s an asshole.”

Danny laughs a little, but then pushes you away slightly, leaning down a little so that you can see eye-to-eye. You know your eyes are red and watery, and Danny’s thumb comes up to wipe away an escapee tear. “Do you still want to leave?”

“Yeah. I don’t want to be around him.”

“Where do you want to go?”

“I don’t know. I just don’t want to be here.”

And so a minute later you’re settling into the now-familiar passenger seat and Danny’s turning on some music and you’re at peace once more. You close your eyes and soak in the thrum of music from a world that’s supposed to be long gone, and Danny’s voice, mingling with the singer’s, nearly rocks you right to sleep. After a short while you open your eyes and look up at Danny. You haven’t seen him in his school uniform; you remember that at one time, you thought he’d look ridiculous. He doesn’t - he looks good, you think.

“Danny?” you murmur. “Where are we going?”

“My place.” He glances at you. “That’s okay, right?”

“Yeah,” you mumble, and settle in for the ride.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A few things:  
> In the first chapter when I listed Reader's classes, there was one called Studies on the Human Body? In this universe's school curriculum, Studies on the Human Body is essentially anatomy and physiology, sex ed, and health all rolled into one class. I just called it anatomy for brevity's sake.  
> And secondly, I'm sorry Mark's such a jerk here!!! I love Markiplier irl. Don't worry though, this AU's Mark will be redeemed eventually.


	9. Chapter 9

The car stops and you open your eyes, looking at the house Danny’s pulled up to. You’re not surprised to see that it looks like every other house in every other residential area you’ve ever seen - boxy, uniform, grey. The music cuts off, and you drag yourself out of the car with a sigh. Danny comes around to meet you, draping his arm over your shoulders and leading you up the empty driveway towards his house.

“Where are your parents?” you ask, noting that his is the only car there.

“At work,” he replies, and then looks down at you very seriously. “That’s all right, isn’t it? I’m not trying to be, like, creepy or anything - “

“I don’t mind.” You trust Danny. You don’t think he’d do anything out of line.

At the door, he fumbles in his pockets for a moment, searching for his keys. After unlocking the door, he holds it open for you and gently nudges you inside. You stand awkwardly in the entryway for a moment as he closes and locks the door behind you, and then his arm finds your shoulders once more and he’s leading you to the stairs. You catch glimpses of life as you move through the house - jackets tossed over the backs of chairs, dishes from breakfast in the sink. And then he’s guiding up the stairs, down the hall to a door. His door. He opens it for you, and you step inside.

There are posters on the walls, splashed with pictures and names of things that you’ve never in your life heard of before. Big black disks in frames between them. All of it is Old World stuff, and you expected nothing else from Danny. But other than that, his room isn’t much different from yours. A touch more cluttered, certainly, but it’s not messy or disorganized.

You take a step further into the room, and Danny closes the door. His hand presses softly between your shoulderblades, pushing you towards the bed. You set your bag down at the foot of it and gingerly take a seat on the edge while Danny shrugs his way out of his blazer and kicks off his shoes. Then, he sits down next to you, wrapping an arm around you and pulling you over to rest your head on his shoulder. 

“So what happened?” he asks. You shrug.

“It was stupid. It was - ugh. It shouldn’t have bothered me as much as it did,” you say. “Just… Mark saying all those things about you, and me, and he wouldn’t listen to me and he wouldn’t let me go and I just…”

“Whatever he said, you know it wasn’t true.”

“I _know,_ but - “ Frustration is leaking into your tone. “That’s the part that bothers me. None of what he said was true! And I just wish that he would take the time to get to know you, and the others, and maybe try to understand Nonconformists instead of just pigeonholing all of them into one stupid image.”

Danny doesn’t say anything, just rests his cheek atop your head, and you continue your rant. “My parents are exactly the same. Yeah, they’re going to meet you, but we have to make you seem like something you’re not. Otherwise they’ll just see another Nonconformist, just like Mark does.”

Danny squeezes your shoulder. “Stuff like this is part of the reason I wish I could leave this place. Like, yeah, I always say, ‘it was a dick move, let’s move on,’ but it gets to you after a while, no matter how much it happens.”

You don’t say anything, but silently, you almost wish you could leave, too - and another part of you wishes you’d never noticed the any of it - the way the news carefully painted a picture of violent Nonconformism, the image your parents and friends had always held about Nonconformists, the erasure of people and their culture. Ignorance really had been bliss.

Danny lifts his head from yours, and you look up into his gentle smile. For the second time, he asks you: “If I ran off to Canada, would you come with me?”

And once again, you don’t have an answer. Despite everything, you don’t think you’re brave enough or devoted enough to a cause that you still don’t even know is yours yet to leave all you’ve ever known behind, even if it is a stifled, sheltered, boxed-in existence. You don’t know if you’ve known Danny for long enough for him to be worth abandoning it for, or if he’s known you long enough to actually take you with him. 

And Danny knows this, too, so he laughs and kisses your forehead. “I shouldn’t ask you that. It isn’t fair.”

You almost feel guilty. You wish that you could say, with certainty, that you would go with him. But you wouldn’t.

You’re almost relieved when you hear your tab pinging in your bag. Danny lets you go and you reach down to pull it out. A scowl mars your face when you see the name in the corner.

_One new message from Mark Fischbach._

You consider ignoring it. You’re not really interested in what he has to say - but you open the message anyway. He’s already ratted you out to your parents once, who knows what he’ll do next.

_Where are you?_ the message reads. That’s right, you’re supposed to be in literature right now, sitting right next to him. You glance at Danny, who grimaces.

_I wasn’t feeling well so I went home,_ you lie.

His response: _I’m coming over after school._

An irritated growl escapes you. _Don’t._

_We need to talk,_ he says.

_I don’t want to talk._

The bubble indicating that he’s typing appears once, twice, and then not again. You wait for a moment longer, but no reply appears, and finally you angrily toss your tablet back into your bag. Danny’s hand rises to rest against your back, and you lean against him again.

“I have to make sure I get home in time,” you mutter. “I don’t want my parents getting suspicious, and I don’t want Mark to beat me there, either.”

“Do you wanna go ahead and go home?” Danny asks. “That way your parents will back up your story when you say you went home early.”

“Not yet,” you say. “Soon, but… I wanna stay here a little while longer.”

Danny doesn’t argue, just pulls you closer and rests his head atop yours again. He starts to hum, and with your head resting on him you can feel his voice reverberating through his skinny frame. After a moment, he begins to sing, softly, gently, and you close your eyes.

“ _So, so you think you can tell Heaven from Hell, blue skies from pain? Can you tell a green field from a cold steel rail? A smile from a veil? Do you think you can tell?”_

As much as you think you could just fall asleep to his voice, you make a conscious effort to stay awake and listen to every sweet note for as long as you can.

You really, really don’t want to go home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So sorry for the long wait! And sorry for a chapter that's slightly shorter than normal. I'm almost done with the semester!! So things might become more consistent very soon.


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am so sorry for not updating this for so long. There's not much else I can say, and I'm not going to bother with excuses. I'll try my best not to be away for so long again.

You don’t want to go home, but you obviously have to.

Danny dropped you off somewhere between your school and your house; you would walk the rest of the way home, to prevent Mark or the others from seeing him drop you off, and to keep up appearances for your parents. Danny leaves you on the sidewalk with the last notes of a song still lingering on your lips.

You’re in no rush to get home, but in what feels like no time you’re slinking through the front door just as your mother steps out of the living room.

“Y/N?” she asks, surprised. “What are you doing home so early?”

“I wasn’t feeling well.” You don’t look her in the eye as you speak. “I checked myself out.”

“Are you all right?” your mother asks. You’re already slipping past her, making your way towards the stairs.

“Yeah, I’m just gonna lay down.” You slowly trudge up the stairs, feeling her eyes, full of concern, on your back. As you step around the corner towards your room, you hear your father’s voice.

“Was that Y/N? What’s she doing home this early?”

“She said she wasn’t feeling well…” your mother responds.

Your father scoffs, and that makes you pause at your bedroom door. “Probably torn up because she can’t see her Nonconformist boyfriend.”

“Y/N said that he wasn’t a Nonconformist.”

“I don’t believe that for a second. If he wasn’t a Nonconformist, why would she have lied about being with him all this time, unless she wasn’t supposed to be with him? Why wait until she gets caught to insist that he’s conformist?”

“You have a point…” Your mother sounds reluctant to agree. “But Y/N has always been so honest with us until now.”

“She didn’t start lying until she started hanging around that Nonconformist boy,” your father spits. “He’s been filling her head with their nonsense, turning her into one of _them._ If that boy doesn’t convince me that he’s nothing but conformist when we meet him, I’m having Y/N sent straight to recal therapy to have that Nonconformist garbage scrubbed out of her skull.”

You can only cover your mouth in silent horror as you step backwards into your room. Your father had already threatened you with recal therapy once before, but you had been so sure that he believed you about Danny being a conformist… but then again, why would he after you had lied to him and your mother so much? He had no reason to believe you.

You close your bedroom door as quietly as possible, then put your bag on the floor. You start to rifle through it, searching for your tab. A new fear has blossomed in you, and you can’t think of anyone else to go to but Danny.

Your hand freezes just as it finally touches the smooth glass screen of your tablet. You’ve already run to Danny once today, dragging him completely out of school - and for what? Because Mark had been too mean to you at school and you couldn’t handle it. It isn’t like he can come to you again now, and you can’t go to him, so why bother him now just because you overheard your father saying something scary? You can’t let yourself become dependent on him, not like this.

You leave your tab where it is, going over to flop down onto your bed. You’ll be okay. Everything will be all right.

It isn’t much later that you’re roused from a light nap by the sound of the doorbell. And it’s at that moment, just as your mother opens the door, that you remember what Mark had messaged you earlier and you can’t help but groan.

“Mark!” your mother cries, soundly pleasantly surprised. “It’s nice to see you.”

“Hi, is Y/N in?” Mark asks.

“Yes, she came home early from school. She’s upstairs, in her room - you can go on up.” A little more quietly, your mother adds, “Try to talk some sense into her, Mark.”

He doesn’t respond, but your hear footsteps on the stairs. You don’t move from where you are on your bed, even as the door to your room opens. Maybe he’ll leave if he thinks you’re asleep…

“Y/N? You’re awake, I know you are.”

You sigh in response, but don’t turn over to face him. You hear him close the door, pull out your desk chair, and have a seat.

“…Listen, I’m sorry.”

You don’t move or speak. He goes on.

“I didn’t mean to upset you - certainly not enough to make you leave school. I’m really sorry.”

“I accept your apology,” you answer curtly. “I’m fine now, so you can leave.”

“Y/N, I really just… I want to talk it out with you. The way I acted earlier - I was a jerk, and I want to try again. And I know I messed up, and I know you’re super mad at me, but I don’t want us to stop being friends.”

Bitterness rises to the tip of your tongue. “You should’ve thought about that when you told my parents about Danny.”

Mark’s sigh is exasperated. “I was just protecting - “

And then he stops himself. Takes a deep breath. And then: “After you left school, you were with him, weren’t you?”

You hesitate. “…No.”

“What do you _see_ in him, Y/N?” he asks vexedly. “Whatever it is that you find attractive about Nonconformists, it isn’t worth it.”

That makes you sit up, turning a poisonous glare on him. “I like _Danny,_ not the fact that he’s Nonconformist. And despite what you’ve seen on TV, most Nonconformists just want to live their lives. They’re not bad people, Mark.”

“Oh, where’d you hear that? From Danny and his Noncormist friends?”

The sarcasm in his voice makes your blood boil. “This isn’t some cautionary tale, Mark. Danny, his friends, and all Nonconformists aren’t shadowy groups of druggie delinquents waiting in alleyways to lure in naive conformists and ruin their lives. You don’t know anything other than what you’ve been fed - you’ve never even so much as _spoken_ to a Nonconformist yourself. And if you would just - just _listen_ to me, just open your eyes, you would see all that for yourself!”

Mark is silent. The light casts a glare on his glasses; his lips are pulled taut. He doesn’t say anything, just looks at you as your frustration catches up to you and you grab a pillow and bury your face in it.

There is a long, tight silence.

Mark breaks it. “Okay.”

“…What?”

“I’ll listen.” 

You pry your face from the pillow and look at him as he lifts his hands in surrender. “What? Really?”

“This… obviously means a lot to you, and you’re right. I’ve never heard it from the perspective of anyone but, well… the powers that be and other conformists like myself. So I’ll listen to you. You obviously know more about it than I do. But, before anything else, tell me.” he looks at you closely. There’s something like fear in his expression. “Are you a Nonconformist now?”

The answer hasn’t changed since the last time you were asked, by Danny. “… I don’t know.”


End file.
